"Man Overboard" by Sir Winston Churchill: A Commentary

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

 Deceptively simple, Sir Winston Churchill's 1899 short story “Man Overboard: An Episode of the Red Sea” is a true work of art. The story's technique is superb, highlighting the human condition through juxtapositions of pairs of contrasting extremes—comfort and misery, safety and danger, camaraderie and loneliness, accommodation and abandonment, security and vulnerability, hope and despair, joy and horror, civilization and nature, music and silence, light and darkness, ignorance and revelation—as a means of evoking the plight of humans as beings whose existence straddles two worlds, the natural and the spiritual, and who are as much out of water, as it were, in one as in the other.

The story opens in media res, presenting readers with an anonymous passenger aboard a mail steamer that is making its way through the Red Sea. After stepping outside the hot confines of the steamer's companion-house, where a concert is underway, the protagonist, listening to a raucous song, “The Rowdy Dowdy Boys,” seems in good spirits as he remembers “the brilliant and busy streets” he used to frequent years ago, perhaps in his younger, carefree days. His reverie is broken when the rail against which he leans, not having been tightly fastened to the ship, breaks, sending him plummeting into the sea.

A moment before, all was well; all was right with the world. He was safe, among the ship's passengers and crew, aboard a steamer which might be taken as a symbol of the human civilization of which the man overboard is a member. Civilization, as represented by the steamer, however, is not an infallible hedge against nature. Swept overboard, swept away from civilization and humanity, on his own in the sea, the nameless protagonist is alone, helpless, and vulnerable. 

 

One wants to escape company, to be alone, at times, but not for long. A smoke break is one thing; being alone in the sea, in the darkness, far from human society is quite another. “The Rowdy Dowdy Boys” brought fond memories to the protagonist's mind, while he was safe aboard the steamer, but the exploits of the boys of the song are no help to him now. Music, an artifact of civilized life, is replaced by the silence of the sea, in which only the man's sobs are now to be heard as he, and he alone, laments his fate. The song, which was “all the rage at all the music halls” only a few years ago, is meaningless now, its strains nothing more than an ironic and dispiriting reminder of the situation in which the man overboard now finds himself.

Irony is repeated throughout the story, at first stressing the difference between civilization, as it is encapsulated by the steamer, and nature, as it is represented by the sea. Aboard the steamer, there is an “accommodation-ladder”; there is a “companion-house”; there is a “concert”; there is a gathering of fellow “passengers”; such accommodations are not offered by the sea. In the ocean, there is only darkness, silence, and loneliness. The progress of the steamer highlights the gulf between civilization and nature, as the vessel puts more and more distance between itself and the man overboard. The steamer becomes less and less distinct and less and less significant, as the sea becomes the protagonist's sole and entire world—an alien and inhospitable world that exhausts him, causes him to despair, and leaves him, literally, without a prayer.

 

Left to his own devices, the man overboard soon realizes that he is no match for nature. The camaraderie of his fellow men is replaced by the indifference of nature. As the ship “dwindles” in the distance, its light is all but extinguished, and the protagonist is left alone in the darkness of the immense sea, a predicament in which neither shouting, swimming, praying, nor cursing avails anything. He is—and understands that he has been—“abandoned”; that he is alone; that he cannot survive; that he is helpless. He can do nothing, he realizes, and the discovery makes his brain reel. There is but one thing he can do: appeal to a power beyond nature, its Creator, for assistance, for salvation. He prays, but his words are clumsy and “incoherent,” sounds of madness.

Ironically, the man overboard feels “joy and hope,” and gratitude fills his heart, as he thinks the appearance of a faint light upon the dark surface of the sea may be the steamer returning for him. However, as the light withdraws, becoming increasingly smaller, almost as if it taunts him, he realizes that the ship is not returning, that he is alone, and “despair succeeds hope,” as he grapples with the significance of the tiny pinprick of light's vanishing in the distance and the darkness of the sea. Where, in desperation, he has prayed, he now, desperate again, this time, curses, but his curses avail him no more than had his prayers. He is alone; he is abandoned. Either God has not heard his prayer or has chosen not to answer the man's petition.

He finds that he cannot summon the will even to drown himself. His only recourse is to offer another prayer, and he begs, “O God! Let me die.” Ironically, he spies the fin of a shark fifty yards from him, and, as it approaches him, the narrator concludes, “His last appeal had been heard.”

The end of the story is terrifying for either of two reasons. It may convey the horror of living, as a human being, in a world that is indifferent by nature to one's existence. Alternatively, it may suggest that, if God exists, if He hears prayers, He may answer them, if at all, in a way that is, from a human viewpoint, utterly alien to such concepts as compassion, mercy, and love. In such a case, not only is the source of nature, of life itself, unconcerned about His creation, but He is also capricious. He might fefuse to answer a prayer for death that is uttered in despair, or He might elect to respond to a plea for deliverance from the anguish of hopelessness and absurdity in a way that brings terrible and horrific violence upon the distraught petitioner.

In the final analysis, Churchill's use of irony ends in a sense of astonishment that can be captured, if at all, only by a sentiment such as that of Moby Dick's Queequeg, who declares “de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin.” Short though it is, “Man Overboard” is more than the hour's amusement Churchill described it as being when he shared the tale with General Ian Hamilton. Churchill's tale ranks with Stephen Crane's fabulous short story “The Open Boat” in its portrait of existential angst—and all in a space of 1,100 words or so.

 

Maritime Monster Menaces

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

 Chrissie Watkins, about to meet her fate

To make their characters more vulnerable, horror movies often not only isolate them, but also take them out of their element. One of the most effective ways to accomplish both these goals is to have them do battle with an undersea monster. There's nothing, except another planet, as remote as the bottom of the ocean, and, as air-breathers, human beings are totally out of their depth when they're submerged thousands of feet below the surface of the great deep or, sometimes, in shallower, but still challenging rivers, bogs, or lakes.

Chrissie Watkins (still) about to meet her fate

Over the years, as the sheer number of the following titles indicates, quite a few horror movies have featured underwater creatures, a few of which are the Jaws series, Tentacles, the Piranha series, including Piranha 3-DD, the Megalodon series, the Crocodile series, Orca the Killer Whale, Barracuda, Leviathan, Endless Descent, Beneath Loch Ness, The Lock Ness Terror series, the Octopus series, the Megashark series, Demeking the Sea Monster, Sea Beast, The Beast, Monster from the Ocean Floor, the Shark Attack series, Ghost Shark, Creature, Proteus, the Moby Dick series, Malibu Shark Attack (even the rich aren't safe!), 2-Headed Shark Attack, Bait, Black Water, The Crater LakeMonster, The Creature from the Black Lagoon series, The Rig, Deep Rising, Deep Blue Sea, Tintorera . . . Tiger Shark, The Eye of the Beast, Behemoth the Sea Monster, Island Claws, Bering Sea Beast, SheCreature, The Host, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Deep Evil, Dinoshark, Sharktopus, SwampShark, Blood Waters of Dr. Z, Sector 7, The Thing Below, The Deep, The Neptune Factor, Supershark, the Lake Placid series, Shark Night, Red Water, The Last Shark, Primeval, Croc, the Dinocroc series, Snakehead, Frankenfish, Kraken: The Tentacles of the Deep, Jurassic Shark, TheReef, Shark Zone, OpenWater, Shark Swarm (never mind the fact that sharks don't “swarm”), Marina Monster, 12 Days of Terror, Amphibious 3-D, TheBermuda Depths, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Shark Week, Up from theDepths, Demon ofParadise, Bloodtide, the Humanoids from the Deep series, Gamera vs. Zigra, Razertooth, Alligator, Island of the Fishmen, The Fishmen and Their Queen, Pacific Rim, Atlantic Rim, Attack of theCrab Monsters, Hammerhead, Shark Attack in the Mediterranean, The Jaws of Death, Shakka, TheMonster That Challenged the World, Dagon, Rogue, and Deep Shock. 

As the titles to these movies suggest, fighting an underwater monster takes characters out of their element; isolates them; plunges them into darkness; subjects them to intense pressure, both physical and emotional; endangers them; and introduces a strange realm full of bizarre and fascinating, but massive, powerful, and monstrous, creatures.

Of course, such an approach also offers an opportunity for scenes of nudity or near-nudity, especially with regard to female characters. There are female skinnydippers and plenty of bikini babes whose curves and bare skin suggest women's power to replenish life, through sex, but this possibility is often quickly and decisively prevented by the menace of the maritime monsters, as dead women can't conceive, bear, or (with rare exceptions) deliver children. Death, embodied in the beasts from below the sea, is victorious over life, for male and female characters and the latter's potential progeny.

Human beings, who, on land, are apex predators, are, in the water, easy victims. They who, on dry land, prey on every other creature, become the prey of underwater creatures which, although less intelligent than they, are typically bigger, faster, stronger, and more agile. They have great stamina, breathe in water, and are difficult to injure of kill. The predator-prey table is turned, much to the shock, horror, terror, anguish, and destruction of the helpless men and women who find themselves at the mercy of merciless maritime monsters. It's one thing to horrify and terrify; to do so after having stripping one of the confidence, power, and status that he or she takes for granted is nothing less than devastating.

Tentacles is out to get you!

Horror movies about underwater monsters can offer additional commentary on the human condition and, occasionally, on society or civilization itself. In Tentacles, a 1977 movie, a seaside resort is the scene of horror when a giant octopus attacks the beach. A place of pleasure becomes a place of pain, a vacation retreat a site of horror and suffering. The cause of the anguish is technology: the octopus is driven mad by illegal “levels” of radio signals. The theme seems clear: unregulated technology can have a devastating effect on natural locations that, otherwise, would be like paradise. Steven Spielberg's classic Jaws (1975) also provides some social criticism, suggesting that, for some powerful people, the bottom line is more important and valuable than human life.

Unknown (i e., imaginary) creatures of the sea can become even more terrifying because of their horrifying appearance and their bizarre abilities. In Stephen Sommers's Deep Rising (1998), a never-before encountered, tentacled maritime monster covered in spikes liquefies its prey, the passengers and crew members aboard a disabled luxury liner that's been attacked by pirates who later plan to destroy the vessel. Three of the survivors of the monster's attack, Finnegan, Trillian, and Joey, take refuge on an island, only to discover it's not deserted: a thunderous roar from the forest alerts them to the fact that the island they've landed on is primeval and, apparently, inhabited by other fierce, unknown creatures. In this film, the ocean setting allows the surviving characters to flee from one to yet another danger, as trapped on the island, they have nowhere to go.

In another creature feature with an underwater setting, Paul Joshua Rubin's Deep Shock (2003), the USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear submarine, is attacked by a monstrous beast armed with an electromagnetic pulse. As a result of the attack, researchers in an underwater station observe, the Polaris Trench has become hot enough to melt the polar icecap and to incinerate the men and women in the research station, without having damaged the facility itself. 

As these examples suggest, the permutations on the underwater monster menace are vast. Not only are there many natural freshwater and maritime predators from which to choose—alligators, barracudas, crocodiles, kraken, octopi, piranhas, sharks, and whales—but there are as many imaginary beasts as one can imagine, including those which result from congenital cephalic disorders (2-HeadedShark Attack), fantasy beasts (the Loch Ness Monster, fishmen, and humanoids), and hybrid monsters (Sharktopus, Dinocroc, and Dinoshark).

The underwater setting can be used again and again, each with a new plot twist, theme, and, to some extent, cast of characters. The underwater monster, long a staple of both sci fi and horror stories, cinematographic and literary, is here to stay, it seems.

Bases for Fear, Part II

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in this and the next post, we ask of life, “How do I fear thee? Let me count the ways.”

Jails and prisons. Why do they frighten? The answer is simple. They’re full of psychopaths in with whom one is locked! There may also be brutal, sadistic guards and an apathetic warden. There are beatings, rapes, and murders, and one can never trust anyone. Parole board meetings are likely to end in a denial of parole and a continuation, for at least four more years, of one’s sentence. For those who are scheduled to be executed, the electric chair, the gas chamber, the lethal drugs, or the firing squad looms, with seemingly interminable appeals stretching between the present (life, after a fashion) and the future (death by execution). Neither family members nor true friends are present. The closest thing to hell on earth, jails and prisons both isolate and imprison, trapping men and women in hostile, potentially lethal environments from which, as a rule, there is no escape, for which reasons they are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.

Lamia. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. A lamia, or snake-woman, is a fusion of two creatures that are never otherwise a synthesis--a reptile and a human being of the feminine persuasion. Such hybrids are, in themselves, horrible. However, they are horrible for more than the reason that they represent a being that defies natural law and the way things are supposed to be. In such hybridizations, the animal component benefits from its fusion with the human, gaining much greater intelligence (unless the woman with whom the snake is fused is Brittany Spears or Paris Hilton, perhaps), but the human component of this ungodly union is not as fortunate. His or (in the case of lamias, gorgons, mermaid, naiads, and similar creatures) her nature is compromised and reduced because it takes on bestial features and qualities. The hybrid is less, not more, human. She slithers, not walks, and hisses, not talks, and her desires and needs and goals are more those of the serpent than the woman. This crossing of species is a crossing, too, of lines of propriety, a defiance both of nature and its God, who has cast the canons of existence into categories which are not to be regarded as mere conveniences but as expressions of divine will and natural law. As a defiance of nature’s status quo and the will of God, the lamia is, in horror fiction, if not in life, a basis for fear.

Mazes. Why do they frighten? The answer is simple. Mazes are difficult to navigate, because all but one of their many meandering corridors come to abrupt halts, or dead ends, against walls of brick, stone, or some other all-but-impenetrable substance, leaving the confused and distraught victim, once again, frustrated in his or her eager attempt at escape. The addition of a threat--a wild animal, a madman, or a monster--to the labyrinth, of course, ups the stakes considerably, making the maze, as a potential deathtrap, all the more horrifying. As symbols of the confusion and dangers of irrationality, mazes are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.

Night. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. Night is darkness, and darkness is blindness. It robs one of his or her most-used sight, vision. Night transforms a safe and secure--or, at least, a seemingly safe and secure--environment into one in which nothing is certain and no one is safe. And night lasts a long time--hours, or, if one is at the Arctic Circle, even days--which is plenty of time during which the monstrous forces of darkness can execute their plans for the death and destruction of their diurnal foes, which is to say, you (but never me). At night, what one does not see is what one gets! The long-term blinding effect of night is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.

The ocean. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. The ocean is vast. It is also deep. It is filled with strange, often deadly, life forms alien to landlubbers and odd even to seafaring folk: giant squid, octopi, man-eating sharks. If the “finny denizens of the deep” don’t get the shipwrecked fool, the elements or hunger or thirst will. Meanwhile, one’s skin will burn and one’s mind will play delusional tricks that could result in the death of oneself or another who shares the lifeboat or a bit of flotsam floating upon the face of the deep. Land is hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles away, and the only hope of rescue is the chance passing of a ship, should its crew see one among waves of twenty feet and more. To be lost at sea is to be lost, indeed. The ocean, therefore, is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.

Pain. Why does it frightening? The answer is simple. It hurts! It also possesses. Rather like the demons of old were thought to be capable of possessing a person’s soul, pain can possess a person’s body and mind, filling a nerve--or a million nerves--with impulses that the brain will interpret as excruciating agony. Pain is a seizure. Although painkillers can kill pain, for a time, at least, and, sometimes banish it for good, new pains can seize one’s frame at any moment. Pain grabs hold, and, without--and often in spite of--painkillers, it does not release one until it is ready to subside. Pain can last seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, or a lifetime. It’s a symptom, too--but a symptom of what? That’s the truly terrifying question, for although pain can portend nothing more serious than a paper cut, it may also foretell a long, drawn-out, and agonizing demise. Because pain is both painful in itself and because it may also be a sign of even worse things to come, it is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.

In the next post, additional bases for fear will be identified and considered, but, ‘ere we part, let’s summarize our findings with regard to the nine bases of fear that were listed in this post:

• Jails and prisons isolate and imprison, trapping men and women in hostile, potentially lethal environments from which, as a rule, there is no escape, for which reasons they are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.
• As a defiance of nature’s status quo and the will of God, the lamia is, in horror fiction, if not in life, a basis for fear.
• As symbols of the confusion and dangers of irrationality, mazes are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.
• The long-term blinding effect of night is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.
• To be lost at sea is to be lost, indeed; the ocean, therefore, is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.
• Because pain is both painful in itself and may be a sign of even worse things to come, it is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.

Source of photographs: U.S. Government Photos and Graphics